ACLU legal director to speak at UHMC

David Cole, the national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, will present a keynote lecture at the University of Hawaii Maui College at 7 p.m. on Monday.

Doors open at 6:30 p.m. in the ‘Ike Le’a science building, room 144. Admission is free, but seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Cole will speak on “Liberty’s Defense: Lessons from the Legal Resistance.” The Department of American Studies and the William S. Richardson School of Law are co-sponsoring the event with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii.

Cole oversees around 2,000 attorneys and more than 1,400 state and federal lawsuits. He has won many cases on immigration, free speech and education, some of which were litigated in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. The University of Hawaii at Manoa named him the Dan and Maggie Inouye Distinguished Chair in Democratic Ideals. The initiative was established by the UH Board of Regents in 2005 and invites significant public figures to Hawaii to create public discourse on democracy and civic engagement. Cole is also a professor of law and public policy at Georgetown University, as well as an author of many award-winning books.